Ebertsheim – Hettenleidelheim railway line
| Ebertsheim – Hettenleidelheim | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Route
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| Route number : | 3421 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book range : | 244a | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 4.1 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Ebertsheim – Hettenleidelheim line was a branch line in Rhineland-Palatinate . It branched off from the Eistalbahn in Ebertsheim and led to Hettenleidelheim in the Seltenbach valley . Passenger traffic was stopped in 1954 and the tracks were dismantled around 1990.
history
The clay from the pits in the municipality of Hettenleidelheim , south of Eisenberg, made up a large part of the freight traffic on the Eistalbahn. The owners of the clay pits there had already considered in the course of planning the Grünstadt – Eisenberg section to build the Eisenberg station where the railway line could run via Hettenleidelheim and Wattenheim to Enkenbach ; however, this was rejected.
As the road to Eisenberg train station was very laborious due to the hilly to mountainous landscape and the roads were in a rather poor condition, efforts were made to provide the community with its own siding. Since this was not feasible from Eisenberg due to the topographical conditions, it was to branch off the Eistalbahn 600 meters east of the Ebertsheim train station in a specially constructed branch station and reach Hettenleidelheim after four kilometers. From then on, this new station also served passenger trains, while the previous one was exclusively responsible for freight traffic.
Later, however, both stations were used for passenger traffic. In the Reichs-Kursbuch from 1917 an operational tour with the stations Ebertsheim Bahnhof and Ebertsheim Halt was recorded, whereby the former was served by the Eisenberger and the latter by the Hettenleidelheimer trains. In the course book of 1927, however, these stations were listed under the names Ebertsheim West and Ebertsheim Ost, whereby the distribution that existed in 1917 continued in principle, but a few commuter trains were used in Ebertsheim Ost that made connections to the unused branch. Few of the trains on the Grünstadt-Eisenberg route therefore stopped at both Ebertsheim stations.
Construction began in 1892 after the mines located in the municipality of Hettenleidelheim had agreed to contribute to an economic operation. The necessary concessions included, among other things, handing over the entire clay to the railway for a period of more than thirty years and paying a surcharge for each ton transported.
Initially, the branch line Ebertsheim – Hettenleidelheim was only to be used as an industrial track. The Tiefenthal stop was only built a few years after the start of clay transport and then passenger transport was introduced on May 1, 1895. Both stops on the way, especially Tiefenthal, were far away from the respective town centers. The commissioning of the branch line meant that several passenger trains that had previously been going to Eisenberg were brought to Hettenleidelheim, which caused displeasure among the Eisenberg population.
Passenger traffic was stopped on October 3, 1954 and was one of the first shutdowns by the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) . Due to the roof tile factories located in Hettenleidelheim, freight traffic continued to play a major role there, so that this branch line was saved from being closed for several decades. From 1990 the line to Hettenleidelheim was dismantled, where freight traffic had already been stopped on September 27, 1987. In the last few years of its operation, the Hettenleidelheim station was mainly used to park freight cars.
literature
- Klaus D. Holzborn : Railway areas Palatinate . transpress, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-344-70790-6 .
- Heinz Sturm: The Palatinate Railways (= publications of the Palatinate Society for the Advancement of Science. Volume 53). New edition. pro MESSAGE, Ludwigshafen am Rhein 2005, ISBN 3-934845-26-6 .